


WOY Mini-Fic-A-Thon 2016 - Tiny Bubbles

by 3amepiphany



Series: Woy Mini-Fic-A-Thon 2016 [3]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 09:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7356034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hater trusts Peepers with a LOT when you actually think about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	WOY Mini-Fic-A-Thon 2016 - Tiny Bubbles

**Author's Note:**

> http://omegalovaniac.tumblr.com/post/146742499624/peepers-teaches-lord-hater-how-to-swim-d
> 
> To submit a prompt: http://omegalovaniac.tumblr.com/post/146690499049/woy-mini-fic-a-thon

“But the Lazy River’s only a couple of feet deep,” Hater whined, spinning in his inner-tube a bit. “It really was the only reason I wanted a waterpark but then the crew had to go and request a whole bunch of other stuff that you had to approve and you did, and now it’s all here and I don’t even use it and it’s not fair.”

Peepers walked alongside the little waterway, a little concerned that this meeting about the fuel reports was becoming a bit longer than it needed to be. He flipped to his itinerary towards the back of his clipboard and sighed. He was going to have to take his lunch on the way up to the flight deck for the inspection. Uncouth. “But Sir, you really, really like the slides,” he said flatly, noting that the foliage surrounding the walkway was crowding it a bit in some places and wondered if he could consider that a safety hazard. One was supposed to be able to get in and out of the Lazy River not just at the sites with ladders, but optimally in the event of an emergency right up and over the edge of the river wall itself.

“Because I can stand up in the water at the bottom of them, Peepers, please. Help me out, here, it’s embarrassing.”

“I can see about scheduling you in for swim lessons with the lifeguards here next week--”

“I want you to teach me. Today.”

“Sir, I have two extremely important inspections to perform and the reports to write up for those.” He saw they were coming up on one of the foot-bridges over the river, so he sped up his pace a bit to go around the railings and meet up with Hater as he floated out from under it. “These aren’t really something I can just hand off to someone else.”

“Delegate, Peepers.”

“I _am_ delegating. The lifeguards can teach you to swim. You require my signature on these inspections so I need to be the one performing them.”

“I need you to do this for me, more, though.” Hater flipped his sunglasses up, carefully trying not to ruin the little smudge of sunscreen he had swiped on the bridge of his nose - and Peepers sighed again, exasperated, because one, the artificial sunlight in the waterpark sector wasn’t even bright enough for sunglasses. Or two, sunscreen. And three, Hater didn’t even need that sunscreen. “If I gave you the whole day tomorrow, and I spend all day with you teaching you how to swim, will that be okay?”

“Is it going to take a _whole_ day?”

Peepers tripped over an errant and crookedly closed piping lid and nearly fell into the water. He took a moment to steady himself and watched Hater float off. He shook his head. This was probably a really bad idea.

The very next morning Peepers barely had enough time to finish his breakfast and enjoy a second cup of coffee when Hater sent for him - not to come and meet him in his quarters, or the command room, or the ship’s bridge. No, he was already suited up, sunglassed, and sunscreened again down by the wave pool. He had floaties on. It was really endearing.

Peepers stood there with his travel tumbler full of more coffee, towel draped across his arm, and his wetsuit on. “Sir, we’re not doing this in the wave pool, I’m sorry.”

They went to the lagoon-style pool that was somewhat shallow (more than the wading pool) and then went deeper (but not as deep as the lap pool) towards the back end of it. Peepers laid his towel and coffee down, and took his helmet off. He stretched his limbs and took his flip flops off at the edge of the water before walking in up to his waist. Hater followed, and when he met Peepers, the water was a little above his knees. So Peepers waded out a bit further, right about the point where his natural buoyancy started kicking in, and he motioned for Hater to come on out, too.

The first order of business sucked. It was getting Hater to put his face underwater. He didn’t want to.

Peepers put his own head underwater just a bit and started blowing bubbles. He came back up and waited, and waited. Finally, he said, “Sir, you know I trust you, right?”

After considering this quietly for a bit, the sound of the waterfall towards the back of the little pool rushing and gurgling and burbling away, Hater said, “What does that have to do with this?”

“You could electrocute me at any moment. But you can see that I trust you not to because I’m still here in the water with you.” He let himself float there while Hater mulled that over. Then, he said, “You’ll be alright, just don’t breathe in. Breathe out. Blow some bubbles. It’s fun.”

Slowly, Hater bent forward a bit and put his mouth just below the waterline, and blew some bubbles.

They did this for a good while, playing around excitedly before Peepers put his head under almost completely and started yelling. Hater followed suit without any hesitation, but then resurfaced after a short stint of yelling and bubbles. Peepers did, too, sputtering a bit and asking if he was alright. There was the fear that Hater had inhaled some water, but no, he was fine, he just realized that if he stopped pushing that his head would float, and that was beyond cool. Peepers blinked, and said, “You’re already a step ahead of me, wow.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. I wanted to show you that, next. Once you were okay with keeping your head under water, of course, but here,” he came in a bit closer and put his hands a ways below the surface. “Try to make your face touch my hands, but don’t force it, just let your head float down.” And so Hater tried. But he found that he couldn’t make it happen, and he was really excited about this. Peepers was beside himself. This guy could unravel equations for black hole geometry, but the simple idea that he was buoyant blew his mind, and it was unbelievably awesome to see that, and see that realization come so organically and quickly. “Wanna try floating on your back? I’ll support your head but this is just so you can see that the rest of you is pretty buoyant, too.”

Hater nodded.

Maybe this wouldn’t take all day, thought Peepers, but then again he couldn’t really see himself minding as much anymore, if it did.


End file.
